Revealed in a letter
by broomstick flyer
Summary: Healer Hermione Weasley recieves a letter on Harry Potters death, a revealing letter that brings tears.


Disclaimer, oh how I wish these characters were mine but they are not, we have the writer J K Rowling to thank for them.

Revealed in a Letter

Hermione looked up and checked the clock on the wall of her office with the watch she wore on her wrist, she was really worried about Harry.

He was in the hospital with a Muggle illness, one for which they had never found a cure.

Harry had barely spoken more than a few words to her since he had been admitted, even though he had been best friend of both her and her late husband. Now she thought about it she realised that Harry had hardly spoken to her since the day she had married Ron.

She checked the time once again calling in her assistant, healer Eleanor Jannins, as she did so.

"Eleanor it is time for Harry's potion," she said to the younger healer in a very quiet voice.

As Eleanor turned to leave the room, Hermione thought back trying to remember when he had changed, or if she had done or said something that might have upset him enough to spoil what had been a very close friend ship. It had been a long time ago but her memory was still very good, even so she could think of nothing.

Looking up she watched Eleanor walk off down the corridor.

Eleanor Jannins nodded and left the office of the head healer of St Mungo's, and made her way to the ward, and then to the bed of 'Sir' Harry Potter, the wise and brave headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, winner of no less than four order of Merlin first class medals.

Knighted at only nineteen years of age by the Queen, the man who had defeated the most evil and wicked Wizard ever known the on who named him self Lord Voldemort.

Sir Harry was now fighting a terminal illness; it was a battle he could never win. He had been in her care for just over a week, in that short space of time she had come to like and respect him, much more than she had when he had been her headmaster at Hogwarts school.

Healer Jannins knew even before she reached his bedside that he was gone. Gently she sat down quietly on the chair at his bedside. Slowly and with great care she took a photograph from his hand, before placing his hand gently upon his chest. She also took a bracelet that was clutched in his other hand, then shedding a silent tear she said a quiet thank you to the man who had risked his life for all, past present and future, risked his life to restore the hard won freedoms of Wizards and Muggle's alike.

Sitting in her office, Hermione was startled when she heard a strange humming sound and looked around the room trying to pin point where it was coming from. It was a strange sound that now seemed to be getting closer as though it were approaching her, it was echoing through the walls, vibrating in the very air.

Just a few seconds later the sound faded and then stopped. A yellowing parchment envelope appeared from the out of the air above her desk, and fluttered gently down onto her desk. Picking it up she recognised the blue scrawled handwriting immediately. The only thing written on the envelope was '_To Hermione Granger'_.

She broke the seal and opened the thick envelope, took out the yellowed and aged parchment it contained and began to read.

'_Dear__ Hermione, _

_F__irst let me say that I don't know just exactly how long it will be between my writing this letter and it being delivered to you. It will be my very last letter to you. All I ask is that you read it as it is intended, I do not want to hurt or offend you, but simply to inform you how I feel._

_I am writing __this as I prepare to face Voldemort and my future. I am sorry that I have to leave you and Ron behind but I must face Voldemort alone. The reason for this is quite simple, I am the final Horcrux therefore barring a miracle I have to go out there to die, I pray that I am successful and that you can go on to live a happy and long life._

_I don't think there is much of a chance that I shall be around for your nineteenth birthday so I wish you in advance, a very happy one. _

_I hope that you and Ron will__ both be so very happy together. Don't mourn for me; just remember me as I was. _

_When you receive this I will finally be dead. The spell is simple and effective. When I die this letter will make its way to you, I am writing it to you as my final goodbye to you. _

_I wish now to tell you things that were I still alive, I never could. I know that you love our best friend Ron. I hope he realises just how wonderful a person you are before it is too late and he allows his insecurities to destroy who you are. We both know he is sometimes a bit slow seeing the obvious. Anyway I digress, so back to the purpose of this letter._

_I want you to know that __I have loved you with all my heart and soul, my entire being is in love with Hermione Granger. _

_I always have and __I always will be in love with you. Although I wish Ron all the best and love him as the brother I never had, I also envy him beyond anything you could ever imagine. _

_Being in love with you has been a strange roller coaster ride for me, but there were far more up's than down's. __My love for you is deeper than the deepest ocean. Almost as strong as the power that holds the universe together. I love everything about you. I love the little twist in your smile. _

_I love the way you place loose strands of hair behin__d your ear when you are reading. I love the way your nose crinkles when you concentrate. I love the feelings that rush through me when ever you hold my hand, or give me a hug._

'Give me a hug'_ funny but I spend most of my time at the Dursley's dreaming of the day we will next meet, knowing full well you will hug me, it makes the wait oh so painful and eternally long, but a hug from you is worth the wait and the pain. _

_Having__ you in my arms for that short time is worth the wait. A hug from you starts a tingling in my toes that works its way through out my entire being. It lifts my spirits and gives me courage to carry on. Just seeing you lifts a huge darkness from my life, you make my very soul rejoice._

_Until I heard the words you said to Ron at our fourth year ball, I had nurtured thoughts of having a future with you as my wife. (It was at the ball I realised that you loved him and would never love me)._

_It is for you that I go to face Voldemort alone, I want you to have a happy and safe life even if it is not with me. You can not help loving Ron, just as I can not help loving you._

_I have often __pictured you as the wife I will never have. _

_The__ mother of Potter children that will never be born. _

_The__ lover I will never hold close. _

_The__ maker of a home I will never live in._

_Those of my dreams that are not nightmares are always of you. _

_In__ them I find happiness in your embrace. _

_In__ them I have tasted your kiss. _

_In__ them I have held you in my arms. _

_In__ them I have been married to you and grown old with you. I so often wish that they were reality. In my dreams you have loved me, and for that reason I have been thankful for my dreams. _

'Hermione_,' just saying your name awakens happy memories in me. It reminds me of times when you have held me and comforted me. It reminds me of the tiny little mole that adorns that beautiful cheek. It reminds me of the small dimples that form when you smile, of your wonderful brown hair. Your slender neck that I long to kiss. The beauty of your face that is unimpaired by make up. Your beautifully formed body that I will never share the warmth of, your loving and tender eyes, the lips I shall never kiss._

_I know that in telling you these things I may upset you but that is not my intention, no I just need to say these things to tell you that from the day we first met I have adored you. I have tried hard to hide this from you but as I am now dead it can do no harm you knowing._

_I have tried to love others. First do you remember Cho and how we fought? It was only because she did not like our closeness, and then there was Ginny._

_Oh I do love Ginny, but in a totally different way. You my sweet Hermione are my one true love. The girl I will go to my grave loving, my last thoughts will be of your wonderful compassionate eyes, I will declare to the next world that you are my true love for all eternity._

_This immense love I have for you is also an extremely sad and painful part of my life, because I know it is a love that will never die and yet will never be returned. My very soul burns with a desire so strong, I long for you to love me, I get so sad that at night I sometimes shed tears for a love that can never be._

_I sometimes wonder if you have ever had any idea of how I feel, but then I see you look at Ron and I know you do not have a clue, your love is for him alone._

_So my dear sweet__, beautiful, brilliant, brave, and loyal Hermione, it is time for me to say good bye, till we meet again in the next great adventure I will love you through out eternity; you will always be the owner of my heart._

_I thank you for being my friend and confidante, remember I Love You, Hermione Jane Granger forever and always until the end of time. _

_Your __best friend and a boy who is so deeply in love with you. _

_Harry__._

_Ps, Could you ask Ron to see to it that my funeral is held on my nineteenth birthday? Tell him I wish to be buried at Godric's Hollow with my parents. Tell him goodbye for me too._

_Harry._

Hermione sat at her desk and tears streamed down her cheeks, "Oh Harry my love if only you had known." She wiped away the tears that had dripped onto her desk.

Looking down with eyes that could hardly see "I always loved you too Harry," she whispered to the empty room, "more than words can ever say."

Slowly she rose and walked to the window and stared up at the heavens. Opening the window and looking up to the clouds, she quietly called out to the sky "I love you Harry Potter, I'll always love you."

Hermione was suddenly aware of someone standing behind her, turning she saw her assistant Eleanor watching her, tears fell silently down the young healer's cheek.

"It's Sir Harry, he…" she faltered as she tried to tell Hermione.

"I know dear, I know," Hermione whispered just loud enough to be heard. She held up the letter.

Eleanor held out her hand "Sir Harry was holding these," she said offering the photograph and bracelet over.

Hermione took them and looked at them, the photo was one of her self at the young age of eighteen, she remembered where and when Harry had taken it. The bracelet was one she had thought lost sometime in her third year at Hogwarts.

"Who is the good looking young woman in the photograph, do you know her? Maybe we could let her know?" Eleanor asked.

"That was me dear, seventy years ago," Hermione smiled at the memory.

Then once again her tears started to flow when the younger healer said "He must have loved you very deeply to keep that photograph all these years."

"Yes dear he did, but he never told me, I never knew until today, but he did love me very much." Hermione reached out and handed the letter from Harry too Eleanor and sat back down at her desk while the young healer read Harry's declaration of love, and fare well letter.

When she had finished reading Eleanor was once more shedding tears, "I never knew some one could love so much or so deep, that's probably why he didn't stay married," she said through her sniffles as she handed the letter back.

...

It was two o clock in the afternoon, the sun was shining down on them and it was warm and bright as the gleaming white casket trimmed with gold, of Harry James Potter was slowly lowered by six Aurors into the cold depths of the ground.

Hermione stood at the head of the casket with a broken heart, her eyes followed the journey of the white casket as it descended and she cried, the tears running freely down her cheeks.

She was crying for a love she had denied for so many years,

she was crying because of regrets about choosing the wrong man,

she was crying because she still lived and the man she had loved her entire life was dead, she was crying because the greatest Wizard of the millennium had died alone in his hospital room, no one there to hold his hand, no one to stroke his brow, or to say goodbye to him, but most of all she was crying because she would never see him again, she would never have a chance to say the words '_I love you'_ to him.

The funeral service was only a small one, just his immediate family and his three best friends Hermione Jane Weasley, and Neville and Luna Longbottom, the small service was what Harry had wanted, it was what he had asked for.

So while the Ministry and the whole of the rest of the wizarding world was busy with holding a huge service for him at Hogwarts, laying an empty coffin within a huge monument next to the monument of Dumbledore. Those he cared about the most were all standing around his grave side watching as he was buried next to his mother and father in Godrics Hollow church cemetery.

The casket gave a slight bump when it reached the bottom of the grave letting her know he was really gone from her life for good, her heart was aching as she dropped a single white lily, his favourite flower, onto the casket as the family all filed past the grave dropping in a lily as well, they were the only flowers there.

Hermione remained standing where she was as the family began to leave, just a few minutes later she was left standing with Neville and Luna.

For the first time she admitted to them how she had felt about him "I was in love with him right up to the end, I never told him though, and I wasn't there for him when he died," she said as she cried on her long time friend's shoulder.

Neville said nothing he just held her, his arm around her shoulder as she wept her tears for the loss of Harry, tears she for a love she had never known about when he was alive.

Neville had known of her love, just as his wife Luna had known, they had watched her as she slowly realised she had married the wrong man, they had watched as Harry sank into despair after she married Ron Weasley, Harry's best friend, they had watched as some years later Harry had married Ginny, and they had watched when he got his divorce, now they watched as he was laid to rest. They had all been friends for a lifetime and those that were left would remain friends until their turn came.

Harry James Potter looking about twenty years old stood with his parents and looked on as his funeral took place. He saw the pained and sad expressions on his families faces, he heard their voices as they said their good byes, but he was only interested in one of them, he watched as she cried for him and he wished he could talk to her, comfort her as she had so often done for him, but it could not be, not yet, but he would happily wait for her, he knew now how she felt about him.

...

Every year for twenty five years he had watched her as she placed a lily on his grave. For twenty five years she had visited his grave on his birthday, each visit she told him how much she had loved him, but this year was different, this year smiling and looking about twenty years old, Hermione stood next to his grave and held his hand.

Together hand in hand Hermione and Harry watched the funeral of Hermione Jane Weasley as she was laid down to rest next to him. She was the last of the golden trio, but she was not the last of the hero's of the Voldemort wars, there was just one more left.

They watched as Luna stood at the head of Hermione's oak casket and dropped a single lily into the grave; it was what Hermione had asked for.

They watched as her family slowly filed past her grave, saying their good byes as they past.

Neville standing to one side of them watched his wife as she cried for her lost friends and her lost love, he whispered in her ear "_soon my sweet, we'll be together again soon."_

Harry and Hermione their arms around each other said good bye to Neville and walked slowly away from the church yard, and away from Godrics Hollow, and then away from Britain, and then the earth. They were on their way to join their other friends in the place reserved for them. A place with no war, no death, and no need for magic, they walked onward together up to the stars to join James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Fred, Dumbledore, Minerva, Severus, and all the others who had given their lives for Harry Potter.

There was yet another celebration party in that amazing place called heaven that night as the golden trio were reunited, it was a place where even Ron was wise enough to know that Hermione belonged with Harry, that they had always belonged together and they would never be apart again, and so they were all together yet again, the only difference this time was that Hermione was with Harry, it was Harry she said the words I love you too, it was Harry that held her tight and kissed her red lips.

The party with the marauders and the trio and all those who had helped them was a happy and joyous time, dancing and singing up there among the stars. They would have another party in a few years when the last of them arrived home with Neville but for now they were all happy.

Hermione was happy that Ron understood that it was Harry she had always loved, and she would continue to love him through all eternity, and Harry would finally know her love, he would love Hermione as they spent eternity in heaven.


End file.
